


Alliances

by flibbertygigget



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, F/M, Slytherins Being Slytherins, Wizarding Culture (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:48:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23428738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flibbertygigget/pseuds/flibbertygigget
Summary: Andromeda Black’s only alliance is with her husband, and her only ambition is to be the perfect wife.
Relationships: Andromeda Black Tonks/Ted Tonks, Narcissa Black Malfoy & Andromeda Black Tonks, Severus Snape & Andromeda Black Tonks
Comments: 6
Kudos: 55





	Alliances

_ Perhaps love is a minor madness. And as with madness, it's unendurable alone. The one person who can relieve us is of course the sole person we cannot go to: the one we love. So instead we seek out allies, fellow patients who, if they can't touch the edge of our particular sorrow, have felt something that cuts nearly as deep. _

_ \- Andrew Sean Greer,  _ _ The Story of a Marriage _

Any Slytherin can tell you the relative value of an alliance. That isn’t to say that Slytherins don’t have uncalculated relationships, far from it. But every relationship that begins without calculation must eventually be weighed out, appraised, and then either kept or thrown aside.

To ally with a Slytherin is common, though rarely on a level beyond coworkers or marriages of convenience. To ally with a Ravenclaw means access to knowledge, an ever-appreciating commodity. To ally with a Gryffindor is rare, but often means that you have a weapon to aim at those who oppose you.

To ally with a Hufflepuff, though? That may be the most dangerous and valuable alliance of all.

Any Slytherin can tell you that the most important thing in life is your ambition. Your ambition is your tentpole, your True North, and your destination all rolled up into one. For most Slytherins, their ambition is wrapped up in their profession, their prestige, or their family name.

Andromeda Black’s only ambition is to be the perfect wife.

* * *

Cissy is nervous. Andromeda can tell from the way that her sister stirs her tea, the spoon clinking against the delicate porcelain just a shade too hard. Andromeda sips her own tea, waiting. Cissy will speak in her own due time.

“You have heard of the events at the Quidditch World Cup, I believe,” Cissy says at last. 

“Of course. Ted and Nymphadora were both in attendance.” Andromeda pauses, weighing whether to speak her mind. “Nymphadora tells me that they are no closer to finding the person who sent up the Dark Mark. If you have any information, I must insist-”

“Of course I don’t. I’m not stupid.” Cissy is telling the truth, that much Andromeda can tell, but that doesn’t mean that she isn’t hiding anything.

“Cissy, you know I don’t give half a toss about the Muggles. Lucius’s part in this is safe with me. But I cannot believe that the first meeting of your husband’s former compatriots en masse would end with the Dark Mark by coincidence, and I know your family has much to lose.” Cissy snorts, a frank, uncivilized sound that she would only make in the presence of her sister.

“Oh, we have much to lose,” she says darkly. “You may have managed to escape the fallout by marrying that Mudblood, but the Blacks and the Malfoys were viewed with suspicion for many years before Lucius managed to buy his way into Fudge’s confidence. I’m not blaming you, Andy, but…”

“I know,” Andromeda says. “I will try not to gloat about succeeding where you have failed.” Cissy smiles at that comment, but her smile fades all too quickly.

“Lucius and the others were… emboldened,” she says carefully, “by a recent development.”

“How recent?”

“Only in the last month. I don’t know the details, but,” she takes a careful sip of her tea, “I have no need to know. I was not Marked by Him.” Andromeda’s heart is pounding, but she is careful not to let it show.

“I see,” she says. “And what if I am not content to be left in the dark-”

“As I have been? Don’t give me that look, Andy, I know you were thinking it.” Cissy waves aside the house elf that goes to refill her teacup. “Lucius has been in contact with an old protege of his as of late.”

“Snape?”

“Who else? As far as I can gather, the recent developments all link back to Hogwarts.”

“Of course they do,” Andromeda says with a sigh. “Thank you, Cissy. I will see what I can gather.” 

“Andy,” Cissy hesitates, a torn expression on her face, “please don’t tell me what Severus tells you. I’m sure that Lucius has his reasons for keeping these things to himself.”

“You have more faith in your husband than I do, Cissy,” Andromeda says. “I will try to do as you say. If I believe it best for you to know, however…”

“I know,” Cissy says. “You’ve always done what you wanted, Andy, with no regard for the desires of those around you.”

“You’re right,” Andromeda says, “I have.”

* * *

When Nymphadora sends them her first letter after she’s Sorted, Andromeda breathes a sigh of relief. When the girl had been born, Andromeda had done her best - given her instruction in Wizarding tradition and culture, given her a forename she could carry with pride - but she had always dreaded the idea of her daughter going into Slytherin. Things were bad enough for those half-bloods who could pass for full wizard; how much worse would it be for someone whose last name was irrevocable proof of her Muggle blood?

That had been why, when Nymphadora had shown more interest in Ted’s Muggle side of the family, Andromeda had subtly encouraged her. It was easier, of course, for her to be interested in the set of grandparents who hadn’t cut her off from the family tree, in the aunts and uncles who welcomed her with open arms instead of icy politeness for the sake of politics. Still, there had always been a cunning streak in Nymphadora, though it came out more in elaborate pranks than in scheming, and a Slytherin half-blood who embraced her Muggleborn side was in more danger than anyone but, perhaps, a theoretical Muggleborn.

Hufflepuff was better, much better. More than that, Hufflepuff was Ted’s House. She would have a chance at continuity there, at establishing a precedent for the Tonks family - and no matter what the dreamers like to tell you, blood precedent matters even outside of Slytherin.

Ted looks at her like he’s expecting something. She just smiles and tells him that they should send one of his old scarves as a congratulations.

* * *

Andromeda has to be careful with how she approaches Severus Snape.

Her letter is measured and neutral, assuming no connections yet closing no doors. She arranges for them to meet at a restaurant that is expensive enough to make an impression but cheap enough that he will be able to split the bill with her if he so desires. She only has one chance at this, and she is determined to make the most of it.

Though she has planned everything carefully, there are too many variables to feel assured of her success. Despite being her brother-in-law’s protege and her daughter’s Potions professor for seven years, she knows very little about Severus Snape. Cissy had implied that he had been a Death Eater during the war, yet Dumbledore had hired him to teach at Hogwarts. Nymphadora had always complained that he was a terrible teacher who was biased against anyone not in Slytherin, yet she had gotten Os in Potions on both her OWLs and her NEWTs. There are a few ways that Andromeda can play this, but until she knows where Snape stands she will be flying blind. 

He arrives at the restaurant only a few minutes after she does. He’s dressed in standard black brewer’s robes, a fact that bolsters Andromeda’s confidence. For a man, a  _ Slytherin _ like Snape to eschew physical signs of his acceptance into pureblood society is as good as a declaration. They both order, and she is preparing to circle their smalltalk around the subject at hand like a vulture when Snape makes his move.

“So,” he says, “I suspect that you haven’t invited me here for the wine.” She doesn’t answer for a moment, gathering her thoughts.

“No,” she says at last. “I confess that there is a piece of business I wish to discuss with you.”

“Then by all means.” She studies him. He gives nothing away, but it is  _ he _ who has taken their conversation from pleasantries to something deeper. She knows how much that can count for. 

“The Dark Mark,” she says.

“Ah.” He takes a sip of his wine.

“Do you know who sent it at the Word Cup?”

“Mrs. Tonks, I have already been interrogated on this matter by your daughter.” She fixes him with a look. “My answer remains the same. I have no idea who sent up our Mark at the Cup.”

“You still count yourself among them, then.”

“To a certain extent.” She waits a moment longer, but Snape makes no move to elaborate.

“And your other Mark,” she says. “Do you know who is sending that?” He sets down his glass just a smidgeon too hard to be casual. “I think you do.”

“And why would you need to know? You have no interest in His work.”

“You act as though I could be neutral to the Death Eaters.” He nods, conceding her point.

“And who will you inform? Your daughter? Your sister?” She doesn’t answer. He sighs. “The Dark Lord is growing stronger. You may have heard rumors of the little drama with Black last semester. It’s all connected. One of us has returned to Him, and so He grows stronger. That is all.”

“It isn’t a call yet?”

“No, but the Mark grows steadily. If it continues as it has been, it will be at full strength within a year.”

“I see,” Andromeda says. She still doesn’t know what to think of Snape - no more, really, than he knows what to think of her. They have both been carefully dancing around the point, trying desperately to play to both sides in fear that the other is their enemy in disguise.

It doesn’t matter what side Snape’s on, really. She has her information.

* * *

Andromeda knows that it’s still gossiped about in the more exclusive Pureblood circles, the scandalous circumstances surrounding her marriage. Or, rather, surrounding her  _ other  _ marriage, the one that was supposed to have occured.

She was not meant to be a Tonks, of course. Mummy and Father would have never stood for her marrying even a minor Pureblood, much less a Muggleborn with no fortune, no connections, and dirty blood. As the eldest daughter of a respected old family, her prospects were meant to be the greatest, her marriage secured by the complex webs of relatives that surround any Pureblood of the highest pedigree. Indeed, before she began dating Ted, she had never had any misgivings about this arrangement. 

After she found that Ted had no interest in being  _ just _ her lover, would settle for nothing less than her undivided heart, she quickly began putting all her cunning towards getting out of it.

It was Bella who had the idea. With all that she had done since then, Andromeda knew that few would believe her, but Bella Black had used to be kind. Not good - she had taken too many of their parents’ teachings to heart to be that - but there had used to be something more to her than her worst faults. 

Seducing Rodolphus Lestrange and ensuring that they were caught  _ in flagrante delicto _ was the sort of plan that brought indelible scandal to her and let Andromeda off the hook for the marriage. The fact that Rodolphus was a bore who Bella would never be happy with was of little concern, at least then. The plan had worked. Bella and Rodolphus had married in a maelstrom of gossip and scandal while Andromeda was free to carry on with Ted in relative peace. Andromeda had been too eager to escape the whole mess to argue too strenuously with her younger sister, no matter how much she doubted that Bella would never be truly happy now. 

On sleepless nights, she still sometimes wonders whether marrying Rodolphus had been Bella’s first step towards being You-Know-Who’s right hand.

* * *

Thanks to Snape’s information, Andromeda is ready when Nymphadora Floo calls them frantically, telling her and Ted of You-Know-Who’s return. The wards that she’s been carefully placing over the course of months, some of them technically highly restricted, are ready to be deployed at a moment’s notice, and she’s taken the precaution of purchasing a small house in southern France that they can retreat to if the worst happens and You-Know-Who takes over Britain entirely. His ambitions have never extended to the Continent, and she knows that Ted will be safe there.

Nymphadora, of course, had to “throw a wrench” in her plan (what a lovely Muggle expression!) by announcing her intention to join the Order of the Phoenix.

Andromeda knows all about the Order, of course. It would be hard not to, what with Ted’s minor involvement with them during the last war. Andromeda had never joined, knowing that, if made public, the move would have destroyed any chance she had of maintaining a defensible position in the event that You-Know-Who proved successful. The line she walked was too thin to begin with, more about staving off the inevitable in order to protect what was hers. She had expected to maintain that same line through this war as well, holding her ground no matter what insanity rained down upon their heads, protecting Ted and Nymphadora no matter what horrors befell them.

But with Nymphadora no longer a child and Ted no more willing to keep from becoming involved than the last time, Andromeda knows that her previous position is untenable. There is no real advantage to maintaining the appearance of neutrality, not when her husband and daughter will be targeted for their actions rather than their blood.

And so, with misgivings, Andromeda follows them into the Order.

She is surprised to see Snape. She is even more surprised when Nymphadora tells her that he's been there since her first meeting, that he was apparently there from the beginning. Andromeda had thought that Snape was her mirror image - connected with You-Know-Who's lot more or less by chance, just as she was connected with a Muggleborn by an accident of blood, but more or less a neutral party. That he would be willing to throw his lot in with Dumbledore from the beginning said that he had greater ambitions than saving his own skin, and that made him both more and less dangerous.

More, because the greater the ambition the more a Slytherin can justify in its name. Less, because at least this means that Snape is more than a cornered animal, that he won't maul them all equally.

At the end of the day, Andromeda takes this new development with the equanimity befitting a Slytherin. After all,  _ she _ isn't working against him, and therefore he has little reason to work against her.

* * *

When Ted had asked her to marry him, she hadn't immediately said yes.

She knows that this casts her in a terrible light to the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs of the world. She knows that her concerns were all quintessentially Slytherin, coldly calculating the fallout of marrying a Muggleborn, inevitably against her parents' wishes. 

But what the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs don't want to admit is that prestige matters.  _ Power _ matters. A respected witch or wizard is able to pave the way for themselves and for their children, ensuring that their descendants will live in comfort in perpetuity. Marrying a Muggleborn without the backing of her family, being cut off from that perpetuity, would mean starting from scratch - no, more than from scratch. From a position of disadvantage, being shut off from all those in power who might have given her an advantage before. It would be bad for her, and it would be even worse for her husband.

"Why couldn't you have fallen in love with a nice Half-Blood?" she had asked Ted shortly after telling him that she would consider his proposal. "Or a minor Pureblood?"

"Because I fell in love with you," Ted had said. She'd smiled. She knew that he was being completely genuine, and yet there was still something appealing about that earnestness that made her treat his delusions gently.

"It would have been better," she'd explained patiently, "to have found someone whose networks were not so tied to the traditionalist Pureblood aristocracy. The Bones or Potter families would have welcomed you with open arms."

"This doesn't have anything to do with that, though," he'd said, frustration carving a line between his eyebrows. Andromeda had the ridiculous urge to kiss it.

"If I married you," she'd said slowly, "you would gain no advantage. My parents would cut me off, my family would disown me. Perhaps a few individuals would keep contact, but that would only be if we were lucky. It would be as though you married a Muggle or a Muggleborn, perhaps even worse."

"Look, I won't pretend to understand half of what you're talking about," Ted had said. "We have class in the Muggle world, of course, but the wizard kind seems even more strict. But I don't particularly care about having prestigious positions or powerful friends. I just want to be happy in my life, and that means being with you. If you don't want to marry me, that's fine, I can take that, but don't push me away because of something as stupid as this. I don't care."

"You will," she'd said. He just shook his head.

"Have a little faith in me."

It took her only a week more to finally,  _ finally _ say yes.

* * *

Dumbledore's murder is a blow, loath though Andromeda is to admit it. The Ministry falling is enough for her to begin readying their bags.

"I have a safehouse in France," she says to Ted as he looks on, a curious expression on his face. "You won't be in danger there. I'll send Nymphadora just as soon as I convince her that that useless husband of hers has no intention of coming back. I knew that nothing good could come of her marrying him-"

"I'm not leaving, Dromeda," Ted says. She hardly breaks the rhythm of her packing, precise wand movements folding shirts and tucking away toiletries.

"Don't be ridiculous. With the Ministry fallen, it's only a matter of time before they begin to go after Muggleborns publicly. You were in enough danger before; I don’t want to imagine what they could do with the full might of the system behind them.” The images of what she knows are their future keep her up at night. She’s managed to rebuild some of her old network and forge new connections, but she doesn’t have nearly enough power to keep a Muggleborn from being dragged in under You-Know-Who’s regime. Part of her doubts that she has enough to keep even herself above water. “The Order is pulling back, reassessing their strategy. We should be as well.”

“You’re right,” Ted says, though his tone tells her that it isn’t in agreement. Her lips press into a determined line as he reaches out to put a hand on the elbow of her wand arm. “Things are going to get worse for Muggleborns, even worse than they are now. That’s why I can’t leave. I have to do something to fight them, Dromeda. I have to protect the Muggleborns who don’t have a wife who can buy a safehouse behind their backs.”

“There’s no need to risk your life in the process,” Andromeda says. “You can do your part from the safehouse. Let the others, people who-”

“Who what? Who have less right to safety than I do? Who have less to lose?”

“Who won’t be killed immediately if they’re caught!” His other arm comes up to grip her, and suddenly her eyes are aching, heavy with tears as she chokes back the sobs that threaten to break through. Ted hugs her to him tightly, and she buries her face in the crook of his neck. She isn’t crying, not yet, but it’s a close thing.

“I’m sorry, love,” he says. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“Why can’t you just do what I tell you to? Why can’t you go to safety and leave the fighting here to those of us who can survive it?”

“Because it’s people like me who won’t survive it, Dromeda,” he says. “I can’t go, not when I could save others.” She lets out one last, shuddering breath and takes a step back from him.

“I understand,” she says, trying to keep steady even as the ground she stands on seems to shift beneath her feet. “You tell me how you think it best we proceed, and I’ll do my best to make it so.” Ted tucks a stray bit of hair behind her ear, something immeasurably sad yet grateful in his eyes.

“I hardly know where to begin,” he says, “but I’ll try.”

* * *

The first time she met Ted’s parents, she had been as close to terrified as she’s ever been. All her careful lessons of Pureblood high society had never prepared her to meet two Muggles. Ted had assured her that his parents would love her. Privately, she had nursed the fear that she would come off as too strange and haughty for them to ever allow her to marry Ted.

“Mum!” Ted had yelled out as soon as the front door opened. He was immediately embraced by a stocky, sandy-haired woman who looked very much like him. “Mum, this is Andromeda. Andromeda, Mum.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Tonks,” Andromeda said, holding out her hand. The woman took her hand in both of hers and shook it warmly.

“Call me Caroline, please,” she said. “Teddy’s told us so much about you.” Andromeda nodded numbly, following Ted and Mrs. Tonks through the hallway and into the kitchen, where tea was already set up on the dining table. Andromeda sat next to Ted, trying not to stare at the strange Muggle contraptions that seemed to make up most of the room.

They began having tea after Mr. Tonks - “Oh, no need for that. The name’s Ed.” - came into the room to join them. Andromeda stumbled through small talk in a way she hadn’t dreamed of doing since she was seven, desperate to present herself as the perfect wife for Ted. Mr. and Mrs. Tonks kindly refrained from stopping the charade right then and there, but Andromeda knew by the end of the tea that it had all been a miserable failure.

"Thank you for inviting me into your home," she said weakly as she prepared to go, fully expecting Ted's parents to say something that implied her not being welcome again. It would be quite kind, of course - she'd seen enough of their kindness to be sure of that - but it was, in her mind, inevitable.

"Oh, the pleasure was all mine, dear," said Mrs. Tonks. "And do remember to phone us the moment you two decide on a wedding date." Andromeda felt the sickening weight in her stomach fly away so suddenly it almost made her feel faint.

"Of course," she managed to say. It was only after the door closed that she turned to her future husband. 

"See, I told you, nothing to worry about," he said.

"Ted," said Andromeda, "what's a phone?"

* * *

When Severus Snape makes contact, Andromeda doesn’t know what to think.

She hears from her husband sporadically at best, most often when he’s dropping off the Muggleborns and their families who he finds on the run so that she can send them off to the Continent. She can barely keep herself from calling in every favor she has just to hear a word from him, to ensure that he’s still free and  _ alive _ . Nymphadora does what she can to help, but hair has gotten stuck on brown again, a sure sign that Lupin’s continued absence and the stress of the war are causing her to careen back into her depression no matter how strong she tries to be. Andromeda appreciates it nonetheless.

Snape contacts her on a Wednesday, when she has been forced to go to Diagon Alley for more potions ingredients. She can’t risk getting the ready-made stuff, not when her purchases could be tracked and give away how many injuries, magical and physical, she’s been forced to treat.

“White freesia would be better,” a smooth voice says behind her. Andromeda tenses, but she manages not to jump or flinch. Either reaction may very well be fatal now, at least when it comes to this man.

“Headmaster Snape,” she says, hoping that her tone conveys measured civility and not the iciness or the fear that she’s more inclined to feel. She hasn’t had to hope that her tone was as she wished for years, decades.

“Mrs. Tonks.” She examines the greeting from all angles. What did it mean for him to acknowledge her Muggleborn husband’s name with no apparent disgust? She’s gone back to Lady Black, at least in certain circles, circles which would have ties back to him. If it was a sign, then it was either a very good or a very bad one.

“Why white freesia?” she says.

“It acts as an anesthetic as well as cutting the brewing time by a quarter,” he says. “That is, it does if you are making the potion which I believe you are.”

“Why should I change the potion from what is written in the book?” He nods in acknowledgement, and that,  _ that _ is what makes Andromeda begin to think that his intentions are not for evil.

“Do you remember the lesson on magically assigned meanings for potion ingredients?” She almost has to bite her tongue. She does. She hasn’t thought about NEWT-level potions classes in years, but she remembers now.

Freesia is the ultimate flower of trust, and white freesia is the particular flower of alliance.

“It has been a long time since we have been able to see each other in more than passing, Headmaster,” she says slowly. “Perhaps we could… catch up.” He blinks, seeming slightly surprised in spite of the clarity of his message. Well, he did murder the leader of the Order. That would mean much to someone who wasn’t Andromeda.

“I would appreciate that,” he says. “I have missed our discussions.” 

“Is that all you are after?” It’s the most Slytherin of questions, a question of his ambition.

“Of course not, Mrs. Tonks,” Snape says. “I also want to win.” It’s a good answer, a public answer that can be parsed in whatever way the listener pleases. Andromeda, of course, thinks that she knows which way  _ Snape _ pleases. She doesn’t trust him completely, of course. She would be a fool to think that he wouldn’t sell her and her networks out if it meant maintaining his position at You-Know-Who’s side. But if he wishes to contact her, she will be his contact, even if that does mean treating the intelligence he provides with a grain of salt.

* * *

She married Ted on a beautiful Saturday in May, out in a secluded park in the Muggle world.

Her parents had disowned her when they found out what she had agreed to, as expected. She didn’t care. She had Ted, and Ted had his parents and friends and extended family. Everything else was irrelevant.

Ted had not been so certain, which was why Andromeda had agonized over what to say for her vows, when they would exchange their rings and become husband and wife. They had the option of using either the traditional Muggle or Magical vows, of course, but they had both decided against the old ways. They were them, something completely new, and they could not be contained in something that had been said thousands of times before.

In the end, she kept it simple, making the only promises she could make in those dark times.

_ Ted, you know as well as I that the future is uncertain. _

_ I cannot promise you forever. I cannot promise safety, or stability, or even happiness. _

_ This is what I can promise you: from this day forward, I will be your greatest ally, just as you have always been mine. I will fight for you, live for you, die with you. From this day forward, my only ambition is to be by your side, until the very end. _

Ted’s vows had been similarly simple.

_ Dromeda, I know. I know, I love you, and I’ll always love you. _

* * *

“I’m so sorry,” Snape says, “but Ted was killed yesterday.” He pauses, his keen dark eyes searching her face. “I thought it best that you heard it from me, before - before word gets out in the  _ Prophet _ .”

“Thank you,” Andromeda says softly, and she means it. He’s right that she wouldn’t want to read this the same way she reads about the others that she cannot begin to save.

She wonders, vaguely, if this is what being Kissed feels like. Not just sorrow, she’s felt that before. This is something else, something carved out of her and taken to where she cannot follow, the complete absence of light and hope. The world stretches around her endlessly, a wasteland of things that could be done and yet cannot be, potentialities cut like a Fate’s thread. Ted is gone, Ted was killed, Ted will never be coming back to her.

Everything she ever meant to do is rendered utterly irrelevant in the face of it.

“Will you be alright?” Snape says, sounding more like a human being than she has ever heard him.

“I-” She stops. She doesn’t know.

“I understand,” he says. She shakes her head. “You have much to live for,” he tries again. “Your daughter, your grandchild-”

“Yes,” she says suddenly, startled out of her stupor by that thought. “You’re right, I must - I must-”

“If you need anything, anything at all-”

“You will be in no position to give it,” she says briskly. Protecting her daughter and her grandchild means ending the war, and she cannot risk Snape abandoning his role by choice or by being discovered. “I will live.”

“Good,” he says, though he still sounds less than satisfied. “We need people like you, Andromeda, especially in these times.”

* * *

When her daughter was born, she added her to her vows.

When her grandson is born, she holds him in her arms and makes every promise she didn’t dare give Ted and Nymphadora.

* * *

She was one of the lucky ones who knew that that end, for better or for worse, was coming.

She had sensed it in Snape when she had met with him, that last time she had not realized was the last time. He had been tired, but then he was always tired. He had been heartsick, but it had always been there. It was only nearer to the surface.

“There will be a battle, won’t there?” she says. He eyes her, and she knows that he is debating how much she needs to know.

“Yes,” he says at last. “The Dark Lord has realized what the Potter boy is doing. One way or another, this will all end.” She nods, understanding his subtext in the same way any Slytherin would.

“And your plans are in place?”

“Not my plans,” he says defensively, and she doesn’t know whether he meant to reveal that much of his soul. She waves it aside regardless.

“The plans you are setting in motion, then.”

“As much as I am able to.” 

“Very well.” They don’t say very much else after that. She knows as well as he does that, in one way or another, this is a goodbye.

* * *

On the other side of the battle, her daughter’s corpse lies in the Great Hall where she ate with Ted so many times. She holds herself together through sheer force of will, looking at the child that her son-in-law made her grandson’s godfather.

“I will be taking Teddy,” she says, giving him nowhere to go for an argument.

“If - If you think that’s what’s best for him,” Potter says, shifting awkwardly. “I’d like to visit, but - but I understand.” She nods, satisfied.

“And Severus Snape,” she says. Potter’s face hardens, ready for a fight. “You say he’ll be remembered as an ally to the Order? To our cause?”

“I - Yeah. It’s what happened. It’s the truth.” In spite of the pain beyond pain, she feels satisfaction settling at the bottom of the hole in her soul. 

“Good,” she says. She lets go of her ally’s ambition, satisfied that it will be fulfilled, and turns her own goals towards the sunrise.


End file.
